Saturday, February 26, 2011

opening sequence with dean martin looking for a drink in the cantinaunusual edits in the music plus changes in the mood of the music accentuatethe action and violencein contrast to the editing of the picture, which is pretty standard, except forthe drawing and firing of the pistol by joe burdette (screen captures)

certainly one of the most striking and inventive opening sequences in film historythe first dialogue is at 4.45 into the film

(for more unusual editing in a fight scene : see the bar fight with bogart innicholas ray's in a lonely place - 1950)

Sunday, February 13, 2011

i had an ideawith thoughts of collapsing starsthat i wanted to seeyour thoughts of collapsing starsso i cleared my sightsthoughts of collapsing starsso that it could bethe thoughts of collapsing starsi rowed to the other sidethen i rowed back againto the edge of the outer limitsand then along you cameit's a journey in the mindthoughts of collapsing starsour mental states alignedthoughts of collapsing starswe're going back to creationthoughts of collapsing starswe're seeing spirals in the sunand thoughts of collapsing starsi rowed to the other sidethen i rowed back againto the edge of the outer limitsand then along you came

the radio mikes we had back then were not that good, and they picked up miscellaneous static and the microwave transmissions that swamp a city like san francisco. that meant that the actual soundtrack we were getting at the time of filming was about as imperfect as the track that harry himself records in union square! everything would be fine, and then suddenly there'd be the sweep of a microwave pulse across the track. you'd hear distortion and some garbled tonality that would obliterate everything else.i used some of that noise in the finished film; as noise, it's very good.

from the conversations: walter murch and the art of editing(michael ondaatje) - knopf - 2002